HISTORY OF THE SCHWENKFELDER LIBRARY AND HERITAGE CENTER
EARLY YEARS 1880-1890
Schwenkfelder Library in 1950's
Howard W. Kriebel,
First curator of the
Schwenkfelder Historical
Library collection
In 1885 the General Conference of the Schwenkfelder Church instructed church trustees to collect books and manuscripts remaining in Schwenkfelder possession. The driving force behind this collecting effort was based on two developments, one negative and one positive. The negative development was a declining knowledge of the German language among Schwenkfelders: this deprived them of the ability to study their own history. Yet, at the same time, new scholarship and interest in the study of Schwenckfeld and Schwenkfelders, especially the Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum project, spurred the drive to preserve, present and interpret their physical and spiritual history.
Designated the “Schwenkfelder Historical Library” in 1890, Howard Wiegner Kriebel was the collection’s first curator. Kriebel, a teacher by training and profession, originally stored the newly gathered books and manuscripts at his home near the Washington Meeting House, but when he moved to East Greenville in 1892 to take up teaching duties at the Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, the collection moved with him: first to his home, then to the school’s campus. With the exception of material sent to Hartford, Connecticut and Wolfenbüttel, Germany for the Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum project, the collection remained on the Perkiomen School campus for the next fifty-nine years.